Q.E.D.

ok. I’ve been really busy and doing lots of stuff and unfortunately for the three of you who read this, I’ve been too busy doing said stuff to actually write about it. however, I will take a short break from writing papers, grading papers, making homemade tarka dhal for the first time ever (whoa) and possibly buying a house, to share something special with you.

every time I fly, (as I did a couple weekends ago to visit my parents in massachusetts), I marvel at the physics of flight. fucking amazing. that’s all there is to it. that Newton’s Third Law helps a gigantic metal tube accelerate upward, downward and forward with just the help of a little internal combustion is simply stunning, when you think about it.

what’s more, to realize the incredible feat of engineering said metal contraptions represent was originally accomplished decades ago just boggles the mind. well, it boggles my mind, anyway. as I stepped onto my flight to Providence two weeks ago, I noticed this little plaque bolted into the doorway of the southwest jet I was boarding:

it measured only a few inches across and was rather inconspicuous; it hung right next to the serial number plate found on every other jet in use by the airline industry. nonetheless, it caught my eye, and when we stopped over in Philadelphia, I asked if I could take a picture of it before the rest of the passengers began boarding. (the flight attendant looked at me like I was stupid for asking; I joked something about not wanting wind up on a terrorist list for taking pictures of airplanes, and was a little disappointed when he didn’t even smirk).

anyway, when I got home I looked up the story behind this plane. turns out this ordinary little plane that shuttled me roughly 600 ordinary miles on that ordinary Thursday night was indeed the 5000th Boeing 737 produced, and the ordinary little 737 many travelers know and love (or don’t know and don’t care about) has a grander history than you might think. as Boeing beams:

With more than 4,100 airplanes in service, the 737 represents more than a quarter of the total worldwide fleet of large commercial jets flying today. More than 541 operators fly 737s into more than 1,200 cities in 190 countries. It is estimated that approximately 1,250 737s are in the air at any given moment, with one taking off or landing every 4.6 seconds.

how many seconds did it take you to read this post?

I tried to conjure feelings of fall.. but it didn’t work with the temperature behaving like August.. so I gave up and made ice cream.
this maple spice cake was for someone who requested I make a “maple cake or something like that” in reference to a cake on the cover of one of those “women’s” magazines in the check out aisle at the grocery store. so I went home and worked out a maple cake based on the maple cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, replacing the buttercream therein with a maple-y ganache on top. pretty good, but a little too sweet for me.. intended recipient liked it a lot though:

then I decided to hell with fall flavors, it was time to make some green tea ice cream.. so I tried this recipe from the have cake, will travel blog. pretty damn good. A++. will make again:

a week or so ago, I caught wind of a web site that students are apparently visiting because it can somehow make people feel like they are high or drunk. at least, that’s the way I heard it. because I’m generally hip to the doings of young folk, I figured it was just some silly site and kids who were acting disoriented or in some kind of trance were just kidding around, or susceptible to psychosomatic suggestions, or gullible, or all of the above.

today, however, two students approached me and asked if I could explain how the site works, what the science behind the procedure is, and whether it was harmful. they were asking me because they were working an assignment for the school newspaper and I am apparently a trusted scientific resource. after asking a few pertinent questions, I was able to glean from my conversation with these kids that people apparently download audio files from the web site onto ipods and similar devices, then listen to them and experience some kind of altered state. the web site charges a fee for each “dose” and markets different files as the equivalent of taking doses of various drugs, illegal and otherwise. still convinced this was a ruse designed to target high school kids who might otherwise like noise or trance music but wouldn’t consider listening to it unless someone suggested it was rebellious or dangerous or secret, I tried my best to work around the school’s internet filters (once again foiled by that matronly rufus, Bess) but could not view the site.

what I did figure out, though, is that the web site itself, I-Doser.com, claims to offer, (ahem, sell), audio files that contain binaural beats that are designed to induce trances or altered states of mind in ways that mimic specific drugs. (as much as I want to explain it in detail here, I also want you to keep reading my post, so if you’re unfamilar with acoustic beats, it would probably work out better if you read the wikipedia article about them).

so, after reading a little more, I’ve learned that there has, in fact, been research to suggest that when a person listens to two sounds producing binaural beats at particular frequencies, they can have effects on brainwave frequencies, which in layman’s terms translates into causing a state of relaxation or meditation. that makes the topic sentence of this paragraph: yes, apparently there is some scientific evidence to suggest listening to files from this site can put you in a trance. maybe. I think? I suppose that’s the idea here; however, I can’t confirm the phenomenon because I haven’t had a chance to find a file that claims to contain said binaural beats that won’t cost me $20, (I’ll settle for free, though. and I admit I haven’t really looked around. I’m sure they’re all over filesharing sites..). either way, I’d like to know if this is all in a few high school kids’ heads, or if listening to a noise track through your earbuds on the bus ride to school (when you’re still half asleep anyway) can really make you feel high by the time you get to homeroom.

on a seperate note, leave it to the internet to find yet another way to make a fortune on kids who could probably score real drugs, cheaper. or even just spin around in a circle a bunch of times instead and get the same feeling. genius. I wish I’d thought of it.